Original Broetry from Marlon Frisby

Readers, what is Broetry? Is it a joke? Is it low-brow entertainment? Is it satire or, worse, fratire? At the very least, it collapses the boundaries of a high form — poetry — with a very low state of being, the state of being a Bro. As outlined in the Hipster-Literary-Bro Continuum, the Bro is anathema to the Hipster and at best a lukewarm comrade of the Literary Man. But what of the Bro’s pen and his art?

We’ve long admired the work of Broet Laureate Brian McGackin, who famously fused the words Bro and Poetry into the perfectly reductive portmanteau we now call Broetry. In honor of McGackin and this growing if questionable literary tradition called Broetry, we’re pleased to publish some original broems submitted by another up and coming Literary Man, Marlon Frisby, a recent Columbia grad and writer of “surrealist fictions.”

Broem 1 – A Braux Pas

sorry dude bro

sorry

totally my b

Broem 2 – Memorial Day

Andrew and Katie went sailing

with her father on his boat

the Sunday before Memorial Day

And I was not invited

though I offered to bring beer

and wear seersucker club shorts

and promised not to be

an inebriate who asks her dad

So when are these two kids getting married?

Broem 3 – To the chick on the subway who asked me to play Oasis when I had my guitar

I’m mad sorry

I wish I did know

the chords

to Wonderwall

Broem 4

Do you need some chapstick, bro?

Broem 5

Bro

would you call your eyes hazel?